VIII 
THE MASAI 
95 
elephant’s tusk, is only worn by elders who possess large 
herds of cattle and many children : it denotes the 
wearer’s wealth. Examples of both kinds of clamp are 
shown in the British Museum. 
When a warrior attains the age of thirty years he 
marries and settles, and if a man of importance he may 
be elected chief. The life of a warrior is a tame affair 
now that this tribe is under British control. Balding, 
cattle stealing, plundering, and murdering are not per¬ 
mitted. Some notion of the extent and frequency of 
Masai raids may be gathered from Gregory’s statement 
based on his own observations in 1893. 
“ South of Merifano on the Tana, Harris and I found 
the Galla driving their flocks and herds across the river 
to escape the marauders, and saw the smoke of the burn¬ 
ing villages whence the natives had fled. At the 
Kiboko river I found the dead bodies of some Wa- 
Kamba who must have been surprised and murdered in 
their sleep, as their arrows were still in their sheaths, 
and their simes in their scabbards. Two days’ journey 
north of this place the road was littered vith the debris 
of broken boxes captured from a caravan taking stores 
to Sir Gerald Portal’s party in Uganda. Again, on the 
Kapte plains near Bondini, during our second march 
south from Machakos, we encountered a small party of 
El-Moran, who were on their way to attack some Ki- 
Kamba villages. On the plains of the Thika-Thika we 
met some Kikuyu refugees from Igeti; their country 
had been ravaged by the Masai army which we had 
seen enkraaled on the shores of Lake Naivasha, and the 
district, for two days’ march in length by one in breadth, 
had been cleared as if by a hurricane. The fugitives 
described the sudden attack, the massacre, the devasta¬ 
tion of the plantations, the capture of the cattle and 
the burning of the villages. And yet as we listened to 
this sickening story, we realised that this was merely 
one incident in a continuous series of such horrors.” 
The warriors in the zenith of their power would 
